Criticize U.S. Senate candidate Linda McMahon and you risk getting threatened with a libel lawsuit by the wrestling entertainment company she used to run, WWE Inc. of Stamford, now run by her husband — threatened even when the criticism of McMahon doesn’t mention WWE.

WWE says it doesn’t produce pornography and its television programs have been rated “PG” — “parental guidance” — since 2008. The purpose of WWE’s libel threats is to discourage complaints about the product of the candidate’s business prior to 2008, before she began to think about using her fortune to acquire high public office and started cleaning up her act.

Such complaints, documented by videos of WWE programs produced before 2008, destroyed McMahon’s Senate candidacy in 2010 and left her at the bottom of the Republican ticket, with more people holding a negative opinion of her than a positive one.